Dang. This made me feel a little better. I was always a jack of all trades. I had so many jobs in opposite fields. And it's not because I suck or lazy. Every single job I ever had I was the best. I can remember all my bosses would tell me they rarely had someone this good. I would get promoted fast. It didn't matter what job I had. I would work hard and be the best at it. But i had poeple tell me that it's useless to know a little bit about alot and I would never master. But I always had a quiet confidence and knew I was going to be good at whatever I do.
Michael Nguyen Effect sounds like it's time to debunk the jack of all trades master of none - it can be done and what you are most passionate about will come through after great understanding of the whole picture
I thought I was after mis-understanding all of the information you've previously put out when you started promoting generalists - until you described that being a master of one thing should be build upon a foundation of general worldly knowledge. A knowledge gem right there.
These videos will be presented in universities decades later if its not now already! always coming back here to nurture the brain about specific topics
Great video, very inspiring! I picked on one of your facebook videos awhile back and the idea of the full stack I've stuck with and worked on - there's just so much good sense in this video.. There's another angle, in the book The Lone Samurai, on Miyamato Musashi, he thought that to excel at one art form, swordsmanship, it was beneficial to practice various other art forms, in his case Tea Ceremony and Calligraphy.
This describes me so well. Ever read the book "Range" by David Epstein? Always thought being a generalist was a bad thing because that's what everyone says. Really love how you laid this all out.
Well, hmmmm. Interesting angle about communication in the work place. I have been in situations where I couldn't complete my work upon deadline because someone from above had an attitude and didn't want to share that piece of the puzzle I needed. Transparency would have helped there. I could have found the answer myself. I am glad you have put a name to how I operate. I am a little bit slower at catching on to things because I always want to know how the whole circle fits together so I take the time to look at details and figure out the puzzle path. I do find that once I get it all together in my own mind I am then very good at what I do. I would think that you would pay a full stack person very well as they have taken the extra time and perhaps paid money to learn many things along the way that are beneficial
Sometimes experience matters, Kim really hits the nail on the head when it comes to corporates, sooner or later people get fed up with the cr@p that comes from the top
Great share Sam, It's nice to finally find someone that can appreciate my apparent DNA! So the million dollar question is where do I find more people that can appreciate this in me? ;-) Yes, I have heard the term looking for those qualities in the software world. In the finance world when you have to push a clients file through the pipeline every time someone else on the team had to touch the file everything slowed to a halt. So we designed people to touch the file less. Do everything one time!!! Great share Sam
Love the level of detail that you present when explaining your POV. This gives so much value. And from now on I know how to call myself :D never thought of a term "full stack person", it sounds less posh than "Renaissance Man" ;)
Love this video. Stop talking - start thinking / start working! A partnered company of mine announced now - meetings comming up in 2019 :-( I hated this e-mail. He is to look this video.
MJ was further able to transition his full stack skillset towards building a billion dollar business in the Jordan brand. Kobe is currently doing this with Bryan Stiebel. People that learn a broad range of skills (perhaps in this case in particular - a relentless drive and nurtured mindset), are easily able to transition success in very different parts of their lives.
You could also make people take the Big 5 personality test and see how high they score in the trait 'Openness'. That's essentially what you're searching for when you're talking about hiring full stack people.
Mr. Ovens, You are humorous. Your sense of playful insult is juvenile, but somehow refreshing. I look foreword to meeting your crew members again in the near future. This has been an enlightening opportunity. I advise that you consider staying within the realm of your league. Half stack league. Full Stacks are for men, not boys. Have a pleasant day.
Since you were an introvert and didnt talk much to people, what books on psychology helped you to go inside people heads and that you recommend Thank you
Hint: Take a recent college graduate in your field. Spend 10+ years making her learn one new thing every month. Then you too will have a "Full Stack" person. --recently hired at a Fortune 500 company because in the last 15 years I've rebranded myself and gained the skills needed to be a "Full Stack" person. P.S.- you've got a horribly different view of Full Stack than I do, but it adds up to the same thing. To me, "Full Stack" means somebody who can go from a concept to leading a project to marketing that project; who can see the big picture. In the development phase, that means somebody who can build a database, build the middle tier, build the front end- on anything.
Thank you for this! I was beginning to think being a full stack wasnt desirable. If you're intrested in find all full stack people , I know where to find em
Always be wary of people with a bad case of "itsnotmyjobitis". The best employees are the ones who are willing to roll up their sleeves and pitch in with everybody else.
Hey Sam, great video. Would you be able to list your recommended resources or primers that enable an average marketer to become a great marketer? Anything related to great copy, statistics, spreadsheets, psychology and UX. Thanks!
Sam, isn't it the case that most companies deliberately hire specialists, but they just organise their work in such a way that these people can be super effective?
I strongly disagree. Full stack people are entrepreneurs in the making, and get bored easily, so they move on easily too. It’s important to have people on your team who can do repetitive tasks over and over and over, and not get bored.
Sam - love your advice / content overall but the Defiant Ones documentary is honestly not the best recommendation - while it is long, there is not much detail on the tactics to learn from.. lots of fluff
I think your biggest breakthru came when you started to undertstand human behavioural psychology. When you married that knowledge to mathematics and (later) automation, that is when your business exploded. The full stack theory works upto a point. I think your looking for specifics traits around flexibility & agility. People who can move between different areas & topics. At ease & will. They win because most of the world is good enough & fast as possible.
You do the worst thing, because: 1. You add limits to hire really good frontend and backend developers who can work together and give much more then 2 full stack (= know nothing deep enought) 2. You hire people, who knows less, because Time is a limited resource. 3. The complexity of modern development is very hight. You can't know ReactJS and Angular and the same time know backend architecture and so on. It's not like in 200x with 10 lines of JS code. So, a stupid solution.
Hi Sam, you mention Amazon hiring people to replace the automated fulfilment process that was initially put in place by the Walmart model (cutting down from 3 days to 3 hrs). Do you have a reference? I ask because while Amazon still has a lot of employees in their fulfilment warehouses, the majority of the fulfilment is now done by AI robots, so I assume they have evolved from that initial point and I would like to know more about their approach to investing in people vs. automation.
Hello Sam this is Rick Dailey I've been doing door-to-door sales for over 50 five years that's right I start it was about 9 years old so tomatoes out of my father's Garden not that I wanted to but he made me because he wanted beer money for the weekend so I had to do it that's what basically got me started selling tomatoes cucumbers and corn I went to all the neighbor's house sold everything then he gave me a nickel for doing that I was happy as a a puppy with two Peters that's right because back then $0. 05 could buy you a Snickers candy bar and I went out and sold probably another six buckets or wagons full and I was Off to the Races that's how I got my start doing sales and to this day I still do door-to-door or obviously different businesses basically I just want to do a shout-out because I see a lot of problems that people have trying to get with her trying to get too and of course you showed them how to do it but if you want to learn some old tricks on a quick way of turn around let me know
Sam a question? Full stack people, in what way are you going to pay them because my father always told me "when they are that good they will start a business for them selfs? Thank you Peter Jansen. Please explain why you think that is a good compensations systems, please
Hey some just stumbled upon your channel the other day and I wanted to express my gratitude with this comment for the amazing content you're delivering here. My question is: What books - other than the 4 books you shared in another video of yours - do you recommend to your (aspiring) full-stack employees mentioned at 30:15?
Hello Sam, Ive studies communications and worked in event planning. But now I wanna get to management consulting and aiming at becoming a full stack person. So my question is o you have any resources I could start with to fill the business gap and lay a structure to my learning.
Not sure if it’s possible to do in a 30 minute video, but would you be able to speak to cross-platform retargeting? Even if you could just speak on the general ideas and general how to, your audience is smart enough to figure it out. 😉
sam can you do a video on mastering boring and mundane task and doing things that you dont want to do. like debunk the myth of doing only things you are passionate about when in reality you must confront the boring tasks and confront the tasks you dont feel like doing
Kenneth Lee until you can delegate low-value tasks, do what you can with mindfulness and focus; get better at enjoying the process (good book on this is The Practicing Mind). Pomodoro technique can help get the momentum going on things you put off or don’t feel like doing. And helps to have a compelling vision for yourself and a big WHY. Tackle the hardest things first after an empowering morning routine.
Hi Sam, Interesting video presented well, but you are a salesman! I have watched a few of your videos over the past 2 days and of course you present yourself well and there’s logic in what you say but I’m very skeptical and curious of people, not only you but most people have an interesting story to tell. Some of you videos I can’t relate too, with private cooks and personal fitness consultants I’m not in that position, I have travelled in my youth and visited your home country, which is beautiful but I’m living In my home country in England at 40 years of age with my 3 beautiful kids working in middle management at a well know British company wanting to make a change in my life! I will not be holding my breath for a reply but you must have taken a few chances in your life to get where you are, so how about another? To spend a week in your shoes and question your life methodology would be something. Regards Dave
Most of these Full stack people are the entrepreneurs :) I am literally one based on your description. I always strive to understand the whole business and because of it I got in trouble and even let go, the reason being I wanted to know too much :)) Did this happened to any one of you??
Sorry but you got this one wrong, marketing is expecting the support guys to support YOUR customers on a campaign they know nothing about end result your support guys look like mugs in front of your customers which makes your company look like a fly by night. Get it. No? Okay how about this, you have so little respect for your support guys that you want them to figure things out at the snap of your fingers, are they at the bottom of the hierarchy, does nobody really respect them that they're just expected to do everyone's dirty work? Haven't thought about it like that have you? Sorry your insights are normally spot on but you have some blind spots like expecting people to work for one salary but to do 6 different jobs, people are not getting the rewards you are getting, they're not the entrepreneur, you are, they're just working for you. Please think on this deeply you may or may not get it. Sorry for this I am not a yes man, I really like you but on this point you're off the mark. But we're all human, everybody has blind spots, can't be right all the time maybe I'm wrong on this who knows, you're the multimillionaire not me, maybe you have to be kind of a d|ck to make lots of money by screwing people over in some way or another. Cruel world survival of the fittest and all that. I believe there's a point where efficiency goes to far, then nature has a way of balancing things out with your business it could be the beginning of division within your company, when your startup becomes a corporate and that usually sounds the death knell where it's all on you because nobody is being respected enough to care anymore while the big shots slowly siphon off profits through bloated remuneration packages then move on to their next target. Sad but true. Remember what Bezos said, operate like Day One mentality. Customer first, always, not marketing first and not full stack people first. In that logic your customer facing people first,.i.e. your support guys are the most important people in your company
What if his support team are full stack support people who are paid above average? I'd have 1 well paid full stack support team manager and then x good support guys below who don't need to think by them self too much but are also not paid that much for the same reason but with possibility to grow. Anyway you obviously have been treated bad in support before so that's really all you care about isn't it :)
